Breaking the Silence
by Alikins
Summary: Postep for Here Today. CJ’s stopped talking.


Title: Breaking the Silence

Summary: Post-ep for _Here Today_. CJ's stopped talking.

Disclaimer: I don't own it. I _really _don't.

Author's Note: I haven't been watching religiously this season, so if any little details are off, sorry.

Breaking the Silence

CJ's stopped talking. She reports, she recites, she insists, she sighs. She doesn't talk. There's no one to talk to, anymore.

Mandy was the first, CJ guesses, but they had so much going on, with Josh and the Midterms, that it never really resonated. CJ just looked up one day and realized Mandy hadn't been there.

Next was Sam, which hurt, mostly because she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it. Then they got Will, and lost Will, all within a year—but that was about number ninety on the list of things that happened that year, and anyway, he's back now. Leo kept fluctuating from here to gone. Then Donna left, and looking back, it's clear that Josh wasn't going to be far behind Donna.

But that was okay. All of that was okay, because she still had Toby. Just like it had been the first moment she joined the Bartlet team. She was okay.

When she wants to hide, sometimes, she goes to her old office, empty now that Leo's gone again. And when she leaves, somehow, without her mind knowing it, her feet always take her by his office. The well-worn path between two empty spaces.

Toby leaving would have been hard no matter how it happened. This way is probably the hardest. Fired. Escorted from the building, leaving in disgrace.

Disgrace. Because of him, men's lives were saved. Because of him, her life is in shambles.

She spends most of her time being angry. Angry at the President, for needing a shove to make a move. Angry at Toby, always so willing to shove. Angry at herself, for being happy he did.

They haven't talked in weeks, not since he told her. She was about to quit, because if she had to go in for questioning, she would have had to admit that she'd _wanted_ to be the leak. She would have told, but someone beat her to it. Toby beat her to it.

They haven't talked, but she knows that they're both painfully aware. He did this because she wanted to. He did this so she didn't have to. He was thrown out of the White House, he's facing trial, so that she didn't have to. Or, maybe, because he thought she wouldn't. She doesn't know, because she can't talk anymore.

The phone rings. It's two thirty in the morning. Every week, her phone rings, waking her up at two thirty. She knows it's him, waiting until he's sure she's home. She hasn't answered. She's been afraid to answer.

She rolls to the edge of the bed and picks up the phone.

"You shouldn't be calling," she sighs.

He's silent for a moment. He doesn't answer that.

"Do you remember," he says, "the press conference, right after the MS broke?"

Tears come to her eyes just from hearing his voice again. She wants to say _yes,_ _of course_ but the words don't form.

He continues. "We were all standing there, we had no idea what he was going to do, and it seemed like we were the only idiots in the world who thought he should run again." She sniffles quietly, nodding even though he can't see her. "I think about that moment a lot. We were so sure at the time, so positive that he needed to run, he needed to win. I'm not so sure anymore."

"Why?" she says, and her own voice sounds foreign to her.

"Because. Look at what's happened since we won re-election. Sam ran off, Hoynes resigned, Zoey was kidnapped, Fitzwallace died, Donna _almost_ died, Leo had a heart attack…" he trails off. "I never thought anything could make Rosslyn look easy, but after the second term…how could we have been so wrong?"

"We weren't wrong," she says. "You think those things happened because he ran again?"

"I think those things wouldn't have happened if he hadn't run."

She doesn't know how to argue with that, and he knows it. "What about the twins?" she asks. "They were born in the second term."

"Yeah," he agrees. "And they hardly know me, because for their entire life I've devoted myself to something that had ended before they were born."

She knows he's right. The President is still here, he's still working, but he never really recovered from Zoey's kidnapping. He didn't want to use it. He didn't want to save them. Somewhere along the way, he decided looking at the big picture meant ignoring the small one. She doesn't know if she's decided that, too.

"I don't regret it," he says suddenly, and the tears are there again. "That job was the best thing I'll ever do. All of it." She lets out a quiet sob, hoping he can't hear. "I just liked the beginning better."

_I don't regret it either, _she wants to say. _The President might not think you're a hero, but because of you, there are three men, three families who think **he's** a hero._

But she can't say that. She can't say anything. She knows she has to hang up, and she's crying, unabashedly now.

"I miss you," she sobs. "Every day, I go in and I miss you."

There's a pause. "You'll get over it."

And suddenly, she jolts awake.

She's in her office, her old office, on her old couch. She wipes at her tears and checks her watch. It's three. She missed his call, if he even called, if he hasn't given up.

She leaves, making the pilgrimage past his office before she reaches hers. She opens the top drawer of her desk and takes out her letter of resignation. She reads it over, one more time.

And then she puts it back. She'll get over it.

She gathers her stuff, shuts off the lights, and walks through the halls, out to the exit. And as she walks, she hears the ghostly voices that follow her around the building, the voices of her friends who are no longer there. And now his voice is one of them.


End file.
